Information and its accessibility has assumed a critical place in society and subsequently tools and systems are being designed to enable the visually impaired to get access to such information, particularly in the electronic world of computers. While screen readers assist the visually impaired to access information by reading out textual information on a computer screen, there exists no system of realistically presenting an electronic image on a screen to the visually impaired. This limitation becomes significant a mages convey the same concept instead of a large number of words and image creating tools have become easier to ease, both factors resulting in an increase in the use of images in documents.
Existing technologies, such as that described in WO 2005/059830 and US 2005/0068589, focus on embedding audio files in an electronic image and then playing back the audio file in response to a user request. US 2005/0033577 describes a website navigation system for the visually impaired by creating an audio website corresponding to the original website. However, the description of images in such systems is static and does not allow users a free handle to access the amount and the manner in which he or she would prefer to receive the information.
It would be highly desirable if information describing an electronic image could be made available at the level of detail that a user desires and in the manner and sequence in which a user desires.